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Tuesday, 6 September 2016

London's Burning by Lydia Syson

Of course I should have brought binoculars.Vast though it was - this panoramic wooden sculpture of London’s mid-seventeenth-century
skyline, rising from a flat barge in the middle of the Thames - itlooked worryingly far away. And there was a boat in the way.

As you can see, Sunday was a dull, grey
afternoon. We had pitched up absurdly early, friends and family, hoping to find a good spot on
the riverbank, which we did.Armed with a small picnic
and some wine, we leaned against the very comfortable wall in front of the Sea
Containers Building, watched the world and the water go by, and caught up on
life. It was almost three hours before the burning was due to begin. But I’m a committed queue-er. I'm used to sitting for hours by the river outside the Globe theatre to secure my favourite stage-side
groundling view and conversation and good cheer always make the minutes slip by with amazing speed. Our previous experience of Artichoke public art events had
convinced us it would be well worth the wait.

The finale of the 350th
anniversary commemorations of the Great Fire of London - previewed in part here by fellow History Girl Imogen Robertson – was promised to be spectacular.Hundreds of young Londoners - schoolchildren
and young people 'not in education, employment or training' - had collaborated over months to
bring to life American ‘burn artist’ David Best’s vision of the Restoration capital.

London 1666, David Best, London's Burning,
a festival of arts and ideas for Great Fire 350.
Produced by Artichoke.
Photo by Matthew Andrews.

The crowds gathered behind us…we got
talking to a few strangers…and joyous anticipation flickered and caught hold.Even the security guard who had to run along
the sandy shoreline below us in pursuit of a few triumphantly stray spectators was
kind and good-humoured as he retrieved them.Free public art brings peculiar health-and-safety headaches and London
1666 was ambitious: fire and water on top of unpredictable
audience numbers.The Great Fire 350website certainly suggested a slight anxiety about overcrowding with its
insistence that the best views would be online. That seemed unlikely.

As darkness fell, we saw the dome of St
Paul’s begin to move, washed with smoke and colour and finally flames: the
beginning of ‘Fires Ancient’, a projection by Martin Firrell.

From Martin Firrell's website.

Out on the river, pinpricks of torchlight moved about the framework of the small city, only to vanish. Last checks, we assumed, and worried a bit about getaways.A few pleasure craft seemed to be cutting it
fine.On the dot of half-past eight, the
first spark appeared, right at the heart of the sculpture.

From the other side of the river...as it started.London 1666, David Best, London's Burning,
a festival of arts and ideas for Great Fire 350.
Produced by Artichoke.
Photo by Matthew Andrews.

Just as it had in the city itself 350 years earlier, fire soon took hold and slowly spread.Little by little, the exquisite intricacy of the sculpture’s latticework construction stood out ever more blackly against the flames, perfectly visible.

London's Burning, as above, photo by Oliver Rudkin

A brief, southerly gust of wind, and we felt the heat of it on our faces. At first I thought I’d imagined its warmth, but then it came again, and it was even warmer.Building after building caught light, spire after spire. The crackling intensified.It had begun like the sound of rain pattering on a hard roof – the kind of summer shower you don’t notice until you look outside and run outside to gather in washing. Soon
it sounded vengeful. The entire barge was alight.

As above.

The clouds of smoke rushing upwards and eastwards developed an alarming but enchanting underbelly of embers, an abundance of golden sparks.

The
fire-fighting boat which had been hovering nearby moved swiftly in to direct a
cooling jet of spray at the danger.

I no longer wanted binoculars. It felt pointless even to take photographs, yet also impossible not to make an attempt, at least from
time to time.No image, moving or still,
could possibly convey the complete experience of a performance like this – sounds,
smells, sights and that invigorating sense of mass pleasure all combining to
provide a extended magical moment, the more magnificent for being shared with so many. There were gasps as the larger structures collapsed, one after another,
spires folding and beams breaking. At one point somebody tried and failed to set off round-singing - "London's burning, London's burning..." Mostly people stood mesmerised, from time to time confiding their wonder in low voices. This was wonder laced with horror. The spectacle - a visual oxymoron, perhaps - lasted for almost
three-quarters of an hour. It was the ultimate in twenty-first-century urban sublime.

Yesterday morning I was working nearby and
couldn’t resist stealing away along the Embankment to see what, if anything,
remained.

Nothing.The barge had vanished, leaving thoughts and
memories. Something I learned this year was that on September 6th
1666, London was a city of refugees: 80 per cent of the City had lost their
homes. The rich rebuilt, but the destitute had to survive for years in
shanty-towns on the outskirts of London. There will be events today in central London to commemorate this aspect of the Great
Fire, and think about contemporary resonances.

I’m also left remembering my very first introduction
to the Great Fire – a lit-up scale model made for the old London Museum (originally
housed in Kensington Palace) - and the memorable awe this always inspired when I
went to see it as a young child. As I
got older, I noticed its flaws – the cotton wool smoke, the boy caught
implausibly running through a flame.But
when Imogen wrote last month that she felt sorry for people born in London, as
they could never have the pleasure of visiting the capital for the first time, it made me
laugh. We're happy with that! I’m a Londoner, a proud Londoner,
and brought up by several generations of Londoners too. The whole city was my playground, as it is now my children’s, and I was always blessed with older relatives who had long delighted in being Londoners. They shared its secret spots and stories with me and my siblings and cousins, and untiringly took us up the Monument and St Paul's and on the river and in and out of the City's churches, squares, museums and parks. I’m thanking my family now.

Photo by Oliver Ruskin, details above.

PS. Some children's fiction thoughts for the Fire of London: Two of my sons were particularly gripped by Pippa Goodheart's Raven Boy. My daughter read and re-read Mary Hooper's At the sign of the Sugared Plum and its sequel Petals in the Ashes to the point of obsession. Any other suggestions?

Lydia, thanks for this! I'd been on the South Bank on Friday evening, and saw the early lighting of the Cie Carabosse fire garden, but couldn't return for the London's Burning itself, although I could dimly see the "skyline" barge. I caught up with the tv programme, at least, but great to be able to read your personal account of being there on the night.

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